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Interview: ‘J’ai publié mes archives pour donner la parole aux autres’-Pochet Olivier
Nyirubugara (Amsterdam – 3 février 2012).La publication des archives de Marcel Pochet a commencé, avec la parution du premier volume aux Editions Sources du Nil. Pochet est un vétéran de l’administration coloniale belge au Rwanda. Il a notamment été administrateur des territoire de Ruhengeri, Kibungo et Butare avant d’ être nommé assistant administratif du Roi. Dans cette interview qu’ il m’ accordée le 29 janvier 2012 à Bruxelles, il parle non seulement de ses précieuses archives, mais aussi de la période cruciale de 1952-62. Pourquoi par exemple les mentions Hutu-Tutsi-Twa ont pas été maintenues dans pies d’ identité ?Quel a été le rôle du colonel Guy Logiest après son arrivée au Rwanda.
Si vous souhaitez commander cette interview sur DVD (haute résolution), prenez contact avec Olivier Nyirubugara. More on www.olnymedia.com & www.olny.nl |
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Former royal adviser sheds light on 1952-62 Rwanda Olivier
Nyirubugara (Amsterdam – 31 January 2012). 91-year-old Marcel Pochet, a senior colonial official before independence has started publishing his unique 1952-1962 archives from and about Rwanda. He served in Rwanda from 1948 as Territorial Administrator, among other things, and became in 1958 King Mutara III Rudahigwa’s adviser.
“My work was doing what the King asked me to do for him, advising him and ensuring smooth functioning of his cabinet”, Pochet told me on Sunday 29 January in Brussels. A day earlier, the first volume dedicated to ‘The Rwandan Problem” had been presented in public. This short report is about that volume. More on www.olnymedia.com & www.olny.nl |
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Rwanda: Opposition from exile, jail, or the street?Olivier
Nyirubugara (Zevenhuizen – 16 January 2011).
While Rwandans opposed to president Paul Kagame were celebrating the
first anniversary of the return of Victoire Ingabire, now in jail in
Kigali, one topic dominated private talks: the spectacular flight of
Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali after weeks of street
protests.
Most of the 300 hundred people who gathered in Zevenhuizen, not far
from the Hague, were wondering if Tunisia had not opened a new era in
the way Africans will have to change their leaders where democracy is
nonexistent. Rwanda is one interesting case: any opposition is harshly
repressed, whether it comes from the Tutsi or the Hutu side. Whoever
has dared
to challenge former rebel leader and current president Kagame, has paid
either with a neck cut, heavy prison sentences, a bullet in the head of
the stomach, or, for the lucky ones, exile. One then understands why
the Tunisian case, where the street forced the president out, is
fascinating for Rwanda, where power has always changed in violence
since independence and even before. Is the street perhaps another
option to explore? The future will tell.
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Museum and Archives Moving from Net to Networking
Olivier
Nyirubugara (Zeist, 12
November 2010). Recent developments in the cultural heritage sector
show
that institutions are gradually abandoning their conservative attitudes
with regard to new technologies. Although museums, archives and other
institutions have embraced digitization since the late 1990s, they have
failed to take full advantage of the other possibilities that new
technologies have put at their disposal (Cameron and Robinson, 2007:
174). This attitude is due to a long tradition and philosophy
of ‘closedness’ and ‘control’
in which museums have operated for long. Museum studies scholar Ross
Parry and his colleagues offer one possible explanation:
‘Traditionally, museums bring fragments of
society’s knowledge and experience into a highly controlled
environment, a closed system, within which order can then be found
– or contrived’(Parry et al., 2010:96. Emphasis
added). This philosophy turned museums into what Parry (2007:102)
called ‘cultural freezers’. The current trend,
however, shows signs that heritage institutions have taken a new
direction by taking their collections from the highly controlled
environment, from the closed system, into the uncontrolled and
uncontrollable World Wide Web, first, and then into its Web 2.0
version. The Netherlands is said to be on top in this respect (De Haan
et al., 2006: 5 ; 13 and 44; see also SNK, 2009:7), and the 12 November
2010 MuseumFuture! Connect conference in Zeist seems to confirm it. In
the paragraphs below, I want to explore one of the most discussed topic
during the conference – the social networking media in the
cultural heritage sector. I will do that by highlighting the way
heritage professionals are striving to build communities around their
collections, and by providing a theoretical perspective to that subject.
Read full article |
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Westerners no longer swallow my story, says Kagame“When one walks out, another walks in, saying: ‘I heard that you have a genocide law, a law repressing genocide. We don’t trust you. It is a way to oppress political opponents’, Kagame said on 7 October, during the inauguration of his not-changed government. He was referring specifically to former colonial power Belgium, and to the Netherlands. In a mixture of local language Kinyarwanda and English, Kagame said his former allies have shut their ears, as many of them are no longer satisfied with his explanations: “Look”, he said, “I explain to them, persistently”, but some shut their ears, unwilling to listen. He added: “Even the one who listens is not satisfied because your story is not the one he wants to hear’. He further indicated that the envoys of the former unconditional allies often queue every morning in front of his door, “and when ones walks out another walks in and tells you the same story as the previous one” In
a rather astonishing move,
Kagame accuses the former allies of
having pushed him into corruption, of having shared its fruit with him.
However, as we live in a “funny world”, they are
now turning back as judges:
“Even when you have collaborated with them in corruption, you will be the culprit, they will be the judge. Imagine a situation in which you get corrupt together another person and, at the end, that person turns back to you and becomes your judge”, he said, in what analysts saw as a clear reference to the UN mapping exercise that concluded that Kagame’s troops might have committed genocide against the Hutu in the DR Congo. These developments occur as opposition leaders Victoire Ingabire, Bernard Ntaganda, Deo Mushayidi and others, are in jail: they are all accused of terrorism and are likely to spend the rest of their lives in jail. |
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Rwanda: Plus de place dans l' espace politique, mais plutôt en prisonIngabire n' a pu ni faire inscrire son parti ni présenter sa candidature. Elle a été plutôt accusée de disséminer l'idéologie génocidaire. Son avocat, Peter Erlinder a été également arrêté et emprisonné pour le même crime, mais a été libéré in extremis grâce à une puissante pression venant surtout de son pays, les Etats Unis, mais aussi des quatre coins du globe. Visiblement, ces allégations se sont avérées non fondées. Il fallait trouver quelque chose de plus effrayant : Ingabire est une terroriste sur le point de mener des attaques sur le Rwanda. Un témoin clé qui achetait armes et munitions [au Rwanda ???] pour elle a été arrêté. Et, comme à l' accoutumée, il a tout de suite avoué et promis de coopérer. L' affaire Ingabire devient un secret d' Etat, et donc pas de visite, pas de soins médicaux, pas de nourriture. Donc, du statut de femme politique ambitieuse opérant depuis son exile européen, Ingabire se retrouve isolée dans sa geôle, accusée de terrorisme, un des crimes les plus graves dans le droit rwandais post-génocide pour lequel plusieurs hommes politiques ont écopé des peines lourdes d' emprisonnement Il convient de noter que son arrestation a suivi de quelques jours le discours historique du président Kagame, le 7 octobre 2010, lequel discours est considéré par plusieurs observateurs comme le début du déclin du kagamisme. Le président Kagame publiquement humilié ses [anciens] soutiens occidentaux 'qui ne m'écoutent plus', en se moquant d' eux et de leurs systèmes politiques. A la même occasion, il a annoncé, triomphalement, que 'l' espace politique est bien et complètement occupé par le Peuple' qui a parlé 'librement' [ qu'est-ce que la liberté ?] en 'en grand nombre'. Maintenant que Ingabire se trouve en prison, entre les mains de ceux qu' elle a constamment critiqués, trois scénarios sont possibles dans les mois et années à venir. Premièrement, il est clair que Ingabire a très peu de chances d' être acquittée par des tribunaux rwandais, car les crimes dont on l' accuse sont d' une gravité sans précédent. Donc, elle fera très probablement un séjour à la 1930, la fameuse prison centrale de Kigali, où elle ne peut qu' être isolée d' autres êtres vivants de peur qu' elle ne les contamine avec son idéologie. Dans ce cas, elle serait invitée ou forcée à se repentir et à demander une grâce présidentielle. Ça c' est le scénario Pasteur Bizimungu, qui consiste en une mort psychologique suivie d' une mort politique. C' est le même scénario pour Bernard Ntaganda. Le deuxième scénario serait celui d' une mascarade judiciaire qui provoquerait la colère des soutiens occidentaux et, du même coup, ferait monter la pression venant de leur côté. Dans ce cas, les juges recevraient les instructions de libérer Ingabire avec ou sans conditions. C' est le scénario Augustin Misago, du nom de l'évêque de Gikongoro, qui s' est également appliqué récemment dans le procès contre le professeur Peter Erlinder, l' avocat d'Ingabire. Ce scénario aurait comme effet l'ouverture de l' espace politique déjà rempli et complètement occupé. Le troisième scénario serait, vu les mauvais traitements lui infligés, celui de la mort physique d' Ingabire pendant son séjour en prison. De toutes les façons, le vice président du parti écologiste a été décapité, et rien ne s'est passé. Le raisonnement pourrait être celui de lui infliger une mort douce, maquillée et assistée, qui apparaîtrait naturelle. |
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Rwanda: no room left in politics, only in jail
Ingabire was allowed neither to register her party, nor her candidacy. Instead, she was accused of disseminating the genocidal ideology. Her lawyer, Peter Erlinder, was caught and jailed for the same crime, but was released later, after pressure coming from the US and all over the world. Apparently, the charges proved not to be strong enough. A new one was added: Ingabire is a terrorist preparing attacks on Rwanda. A key witness who bought arms for her is already in custody. It’s a state security case and no one can have access to her. Thus, from the status of ambitious politician operating from her European exile, Ingabire turned out to be a ‘terrorist’, the most serious crime for which other politicians have received a life imprisonment.It should be noted that her arrest followed president Kagame’s historic speech on 7 October, which many analysts have considered to be a turning point in his relations with the West. Apart from frontally attacking and mocking his now critical western backers, Kagame triumphantly announced that ‘the political space is well and fully occupied by the people of this country’, who spoke in ‘big numbers’ and - this one is important – freely.Now that Ingabire is in jail, in the hands of those she constantly and virulently criticised, three scenarios are possible for the coming months and years. First, one would say that Ingabire stands a very little chance to be acquitted by Rwandan courts, as two of the most serious crimes in post-genocide Rwanda hang on her head. Thus, she will most likely spend the coming years at 1930, the famous Kigali central prison, where she would be isolated from other inmates for fear she would contaminate them. She would then be invited or pushed to repent, and ask for a presidential pardon, which was the case for former president Pasteur Bizimungu. That scenario consists in a psycological death, followed by , and resulting in, a political death. Bernard Ntaganda is in this scenario. The second scenario would be that the judicial masquerade would lead to international outrage and increase pressure from the Western backers. The judges would then receive instruction to release her either conditionally or unconditionally. Bishop Augustin Misago and recently Ingabire’s lawyer Peter Erlinder, were in this scenario. This one consists in ‘surrender’ and would most likely free some room in the full and fully occupied political space A third scenario could be envisaged: Physical death while in detention. Any way Green Party’s vice-president Rwisereka was beheaded and nothing happened. The reasoning might go in the direction of a slow, seemingly natural but assisted death. Ingabire’s husband, Lin Muyizere fears already for the health of his wife, whose blood pressure is said to be very low. She is also reported to sleep on bare floor and to receive to food or proper medication. |
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Rusesabagina: Y a-t-il d’ autres témoins à part les prisonniers?
‘Ca me surprend de voir que le gouvernement rwandais n’ a pas d’ autres témoins que des prisonniers’, m’ a annoncé Rusesabagina dans une interview le samedi 22 mai 2010 à Bruxelles. Selon les médias qui ont relayé l’ information depuis Kigali, l’ officier en question aurai des preuves prouvant les transferts d’ argent envoyé par Rusesabagina. Celui-ci nie ces allégations, les mettant sur le compte du régime qui, depuis quelques années veut souiller son image. Répondant à la question de savoir s’il connaissait l’ officier qui l’ incrimine, Rusesabagina a répondu : ‘A moins que cette personne ait voyagé et qu’ on se soit rencontré ici en Belgique, sinon, je ne connais personne dans les FDLR’. Néanmoins, il a ajouté que dans sa qualité d’ humanitaire, il se pourrait que il ait rencontré quelqu’un sans toutefois retenir son nom et son identité. La procédure de Kigali pourrait dans les prochains jours conduire à des poursuites contre Rusesabagina, qui, de toutes les façons, n’ est pas prêt ni à comparaître, ni à témoigner: ‘Je n’ ai pas besoin de témoigner quand une justice est injuste’, a-t-il martelé. |
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Lawyer ventures into Kigali to defend Ingabire
Olivier
Nyirubugara (Brussels: 23 May
2010)-Professor Peter Erlinder
flew to Kigali last Saturday 22 May
to
meet Ms Victoire
Ingabire, an opposition leader
currently under arrest
on charges of denying the genocide against the Tutsi and collaborating
with terrorist groups.
Ingabire returned home earlier this year after 16 years of exile in the Netherlands. She was then hoping to register her party, the United Democratic Forces and to run for presidency in coming August. All seems to be turning in a nightmare for her as her passport, computer and mobile phone were seized. I met professor Erlinder in Brussels a few hours before his flight to Kigali. He was attending a conference on the legacy and lessons from the UN Tribunal for Rwanda. The mission will certainly be difficult as local pro-government media have portrayed him as a genocide ‘minimizer’. In this interview, Professor Erlinder gives his point of view on the road ahead. |
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Focus on The ICTR: The Defence Perspective
The
UN International criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has a few years to
go and discussions about its legacy for the International Criminal Law
has started. While some perceive that Tribunal as a major advancement,
others, including defense laywers, who have been defending genocide
suspects for last fourteen years, think that this ICTR and other ad hoc
courts, have created a regrettable precedent. The legality of the ICTR is still being discussed, even as the Court’s closure is drawing near. In this regard, the laywers and scholars who spoke during the conference converge to qualify the setting up the ICTR by the Security Council as an abuse of power.... Go to the thematic reports |
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Rusesabagina: ‘Rwanda back to ethnic servitude system’
The Hotel Rwanda hero, Paul Rusesabagina is worried about the direction Rwanda is taking, especially with an unfairly managed reconciliation process through popular tribunals known as Gacaca. Rusesabagina denounces that system, where judges are illiterate and have no understanding of laws. He is more upset about the so-called public interest labour that replaces jail sentences for repentant genocidaires, which reminds of, and resembles the banished feudal system known as Ubuhake. This report was made on 25 April 2009 in The Hague, where Rusesabagina held a lecture in front of 500 people at the Hague University. He was one of the two keynote speakers at the yearly Africa Day event organised by the Evert Vermeer Foundation. Rusesabagina once described himself as ‘an ordinary man’, but he has since 2004 become a world celebrity due to the film Hotel Rwanda that featured his risky and courageous rescue operation during the 1994 genocide. Read more Also view: The 26 April 2008 Hague special conference on peace |
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Rwanda 2010: Another Kenya? Another Zimbabwe?
The 2010 polls in Rwanda promise to be different from the 2003 ones. No candidate is officially known but there is little doubt about president Paul Kagame running for another term, as the Constitution allows him to do so. There is also little doubt about opposition leader Victoire Ingabire’s ambitions. For her, things are yet to go through bureaucratic and administrative procedures that might pose serious problems. She has first to back to the country she left 15 years ago, and where those she fights politically are the masters of the land. Ingabire seems to have started her European campaign. She is going from one conference to another. From one lecture to another. International media are dedicating long reports on her, which is rather making her popular at least among the Rwandan diaspora and the Westerners. But these will not take part in the election! She will have to conquer the Rwandan populations inside Rwanda, a country she describes as a land of anguish and repression. This video report is about the lecture she held on 15 April 2009 at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. She was invited by the United Nations Students Association to discuss Rwanda’s history and politics, as well as her presidential ambitions. Read more |
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Rwandans can talk. They need a platform
Experts
have been cogitating about the virus that infected Rwanda and is
obviously resisting any cure. Others rather think that they have
identified the microbe and are fighting it using the Gacaca system
among others. Yet others think that the virus has no cure but rather
remedies that can render it inoffensive. I have already given my view
on that virus in an article with the title ‘Memory Crisis: What Rwandans Remember
and Forget’. My
analysis remains the same, namely that Rwanda and Rwandans are making
themselves victims of their past. The successive leaders of Rwanda have
failed to go beyond their ethnic memories, which they turn into
history. They also turn it into the absolute truth, taught in school,
preached in media (film, radio, tv and papers), and backed by judges,
whether trained on non trained.
However, one thing needs to be noted in addition to my above-mentioned analysis: the conflicting memories – the true deadly virus – can be spoken about and confronted. The debate that took place in The Hague on 6 April 2009 in the framework of Amnesty International’s Movies that Matter Festival, gave me a golden occasion to test my theory. I managed to interview both some Tutsi who survived the 1994 genocide and lost their loved ones in it and the Hutu survivors of the RPF massacres who also lost theirs in the same year. I asked them three questions: Is the Gacaca system contributing to the reconciliation process? Is justice rendered for the RPF Hutu victims? How will Rwanda be like in 2020?... Read more |
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Interview with FDU-UDF chairwoman Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza 18 - 01- 2009
The next presidential elections in Rwanda are about two years away but the opposition in exile is already getting ready for them. The Unified Democratic Forces (UDF) have already announced their participation and are even optimistic. Mrs Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza heads that organisation and has been presented by Dutch and Belgian media as UDF candidate. That is not the case, at least for the time being, says Ingabire in an interview that I am pleased to present in several parts covering Ingabire’s biography, democracy and governance in Rwanda, genocide and ethnicity, UDF’s relations with other organisations, and their diplomatic relations, including Ingabire’s meeting with Barack Obama. Go to theme-based excerpts TRADUCTION FRANCAISE: Alors qu’il reste encore à peu près deux ans avant les élections présidentielles, on s’y prépare déjà, surtout du côté l’opposition en exile. Les Forces Démocratiques Unifiées, FDU, viennent d’annoncer qu’elles allaient y participer et sont même optimistes. Madame Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza est à la tête de cette organisation et a été récemment présentée par les média surtout belges et néerlandais comme étant candidate des FDU, ce qui n’est pas tout à fait vrai, du moins pour le moment, comme Madame Ingabire me l’a dit dans l’interview que j’ai le plaisir de vous présenter en plusieurs parties, touchant notamment à la biographie de Madame Ingabire, à la démocratie et à la gouvernance au Rwanda, au génocide et à la question ethnique, aux relations entre les FDU et les autres forces politiques, ainsi qu’à leurs relations diplomatiques, y compris la rencontre de Madame Ingabire avec Barack Obama. Extraits thématiques |
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Africa resists financial hurricane
As the Dow Jones desperately keeps going down, and Western banks keep navigating in troubled waters, Africa is firmly resisting and her finances and economy are said to be healthier than ever. “In Togo we are not dealing with the crisis”, T. Gnasosounou of Cauris Investissement, told me in early October in The Hague. His understanding of the current crisis is that there is much liquidity in the West but ‘bankers don’t know how to use this money’, while ‘in Africa it’s the opposite’. “The crisis is not affecting us at all”, adds F. Swai of Akiba Commercial Bank in Tanzania. She explains that this immunity comes from the fact that none of the collapsed or collapsing banks have no chapters in her country. However, she adds, the Central Bank of Tanzania is consulting with commercial banks to strengthen regulations. The urgent issue now is to know how long African banks will stay in calm waters in a globalized and market-based world economy |
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Rwandans discuss peace Page
Hundreds of Rwandans met on Saturday 26 April in the Dutch Capital the Hague to talk of Peace in their country. I should rather say to talk of peaces as the notion of peace is viewed differently by the Hutu and Tutsi communities. On the one hand, Hutus from all over Europe and a number of Europeans, were patiently and silently queuing in front of the ICJ, where a heavy police presence could be seen. On the other hand were Tutsi protestors, who were having banners announcing that the Peace Palace, the seat of the UN Court of Justice was not appropriate for the Peace Conference. Unfortunately, protestors refused to answer my questions, preferring to direct me to their leader who had their official message. Paul Rusesabagina, the man who inspired the Hollywood movie Hotel Rwanda was the key speaker of the day The public was given a chance to ask questions, even though many of them remained unanswered... Go to the 26 April 2008 conference on peace page |
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Special page for the Conference on Ferdinand Nahimana's book Rwanda les virages ratésDossier Spécial Conférence sur le livre Rwanda les virages ratés de Ferdinand Nahimana
Hervé Déguine was head of the Africa Desk at Reporters Witohut Borders in the early 1990s. He particularly followed the case of Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines and contributed to the charging of its initiators. Déguine is currently completing a biography of Ferdinand Nahimana, one of RTLM founders. He admits having been manipulated and having belonged to the Blancs Menteurs, to borrow the words of Pierre Péan. Regarding the latest book by Nahimana, Rwanda: les virages rates, Déguine criticizes it as being below the usual level at which Nahimana writes. Go to the Nahimana book conference page |
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Interview with Major General Patrick Cammaert
Major General Patrick Cammaert is optimistic as to the peace process in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he served as deputy commander in chief of the Peace Mission until February last year. The Dutch general says that the DRC armed forces should be careful with their attacks on insurgent general Laurent Nkunda and the FDLR, a Rwandan rebel group also operating in the Eastern part. Cammaert admits that military pressure is needed, but adds that it should prepare the ground for political talks both with Nkunda and the FDLR. |